Equilibrium: Threats from Within
by judehaz
Summary: A young vampire threatens the entire Cullen family. Immediately following the events of Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer. *MAJOR WORK IN PROGRESS* Comments are welcome and encouraged.
1. Chapter 1

**Preface: Edward**

  
"There were stories about the early days, but none described _this_, Carlisle."

"She's one of a kind, son," he replied just above a whisper. "We had to expect some complications. But you're right, this is more extreme than any of our legends tell. If our family can stand against the Volturi, this too shall pass."

We stared at her writhing on the ground in a frenzied rage as she tore a small fox apart with her teeth. The progression of her bites instinctually kept the fox alive as long as possible during the killing. Alice stood just behind Carlisle and made a small hiss as she forced her thoughts away from the suffering fox.

"How could something so beautiful do something so…," she said, stopping short. We didn't need her to finish to know what she meant. We all thought the same thing.

"Carlisle is right, Alice. This too shall pass. It can't be as hard on her as it is on the rest of us."

"_I hope you're right," _she thought as she gave me a pessimistic glance.

The fox died after a few more minutes as we stood silent witness. Despite the abundance of blood now gushing out of the fox, the young vampire abruptly lost interest in her target. We instantly surrounded her and I grasped her head tightly in my hands as Carlisle and Alice held her body momentarily in place.

"Enough for one night." I said in a stern, measured tone. It was the only thing she could understand now. She snarled, exposed her teeth rabidly and started towards my neck, stopping short and gazing into my eyes, confused. A look I had seen hundreds of times over the last three weeks. And then she exploded again into a bloodlust.


	2. Chapter 2

**Bella (POV)**

Renesmee was still asleep as dawn broke. Like usual, Edward and I were locked together inside my shield sharing each others' minds. With practice, I had learned that my shield not only protected anything inside, but, in some cases, imbued me with the power of a willing vampire inside it. I hadn't tried to forcibly take the power of a vampire in my shield – there wasn't a need to. But Jasper was certain it was possible. I was hoping I wouldn't have to test his theory for a long, long time.

"_So you see how I truly saw you that day_," Edward thought after showing me the day he saved my human life from being crushed between a truck and a van at Forks High School. In his vision, the thin, translucent skin on my week human body screamed to the monster inside him. Nearly blinding, nearly impossible to ignore. It made my mortal features almost beautiful.

"_I'm sorry it was so hard for you, love,_" I thought. That first day must have been intolerable for him, wanting so badly to kill me, not knowing if he could allow himself to love me. I am only now beginning to understand how he felt.

I felt guilty as I shared with Edward an early memory I had as a vampire, when I heard the television downstairs in the Cullens' living room through my new vampire ears, laying upstairs paralyzed in pain. I still hadn't told Edward of the horror I experienced during my transformation. As often as our minds were communicating now, I wasn't sure I could hide the truth from him much longer.

"_It was a hundred times harder for you to… change for me,"_ he thought. Maybe he already knew what I wasn't telling him about my early hours as an immortal.

Our minds moved on to happier memories, of our dance at the prom – I laughed when I remembered my clumsy body being spun around atop his graceful feet – and our time on Isle Esme. I realized now that those few short weeks of our honeymoon really were the beginning of my new life.

We instantly arose from our bed as Nessie began to stir. We had studied her sounds closely enough since we returned to normal life and sensed when she would rise. I knew she would stop aging in less than seven years, and I wondered if she would sleep less and less as she got older.

"A new day," Edward said in his velvet voice, cracking our favorite half smile.

"Yes, little one, a beautiful morning," I said. Nessie opened her perfect eyes and rose from sleep.

We tried to speak as much as possible in these early months with Nessie. We didn't know if she would ever be able to live among humans, but we wanted her to be comfortable with words and not just thoughts.

"Momma, daddy!" she chirped, bounding from her bed into Edward's chest, arriving at her target with her arms perfectly around his shoulders.

She was now the size of a ten year old. Although her physical growth was slowing, she had an incredibly intelligent mind. She was ever inquisitive, but far less innocent than before that day our family faced the Volturi. I hated that she had to share who she was with a group of vampires who had come to that field to eliminate all of us, but I also knew that it was necessary for our family's survival. It was Nessie's first – and I wished last – battle.

"Any new dreams?" I asked, as we walked toward the kitchen, Nessie still in Edward's arms. She had been dreaming a lot about the Volturi, and, of course, Jacob Black.

Reluctantly, she answered in words rather than thoughts. She always preferred to _show us._

"A pretty one with Jake and you, momma," she cooed. "You and I were riding on his back across the beach. We were going so fast, chasing a rainbow over the horizon. We ran past the waves, rocks and trees. Finally Jake jumped up into the sky and we caught the rainbow's red and orange edge.

I giggled and Edward discretely rolled his eyes. Just wait until she told that one to Jacob.

"That sounds very pretty, sweetie. I don't know if Jake has ever jumped _that_ high, but rainbows were always my favorite." I suppressed a laugh, remembering how blind my human senses had been.

"What would you like for breakfast today, Nessie?" Edward said, setting her down at the kitchen table and putting on an apron.

Nessie still preferred blood, but as she rapidly aged, her half-human body seemed to crave large amounts of human food. Sometimes watching how much she ate reminded me of a pack of hungry werewolves that I know.

"Surprise me," she giggled. Edward was already frying up a half-dozen eggs, Nessie's favorite.


	3. Chapter 3

Edward and I watched as she ate her breakfast fit for a werewolf. She studied each bite before eating it, rotating her fork around and around before putting it in her mouth. By the time she was done, her food was cold, but she didn't seem to mind. I wondered if she knew something we didn't about her aging process.

"You're such a good cook daddy, too bad you can never enjoy it," she said while studying a particularly large piece of scrambled egg.

"I enjoy it plenty sweetie, watching you," Edward whispered. "I'm good at cooking eggs. My honeymoon with your mother guaranteed that."

He glanced at me with a smile. I enjoyed watching Nessie eat too, but I almost forgot the physical sensations of eating solid food. To think it'd been just months since I had been changed. I felt like a completely different being. Food now seemed very inefficient, primitive to me. How backwards that would seem through human eyes.

No sooner than Nessie finished her breakfast, Alice was in the doorway to the kitchen of our cottage in the woods. "Today's a big day, kiddo!" she said with a huge smile. Alice had been holding birthdays for Nessie based on Carlisle's projections of her biological age ever since the Volturi threat was defeated, and today was officially her tenth.

I thought Alice had enjoyed setting up my eighteenth birthday, but that was nothing compared to the bashes she put on for Nessie, parties fit for a princess. "Yay, I love my birthday parties, Alice!" Nessie crooned. "What am I wearing this time?"

"Apparently the apple fell far from the tree, huh sis?" Alice said as she disappeared with Nessie into our large closet. While I had always been embarrassed by the attention Alice lavished on me, Nessie seemed to feed on it, taking in every detail.

"You're going to love the one you pick out, Nessie!" She had no doubt prepared a diverse selection of outfits for my daughter, ten going on eighteen at the speed of light.

I sighed as Edward and I embraced in the kitchen. Such a short childhood, I thought. Even with my desperation to be changed by Edward, I now appreciated my 18 years as a human being with a new perspective. My daughter would only have glimpses of a normal childhood.

"We have some time before the party, and you know our sister will occupy Nessie until then," Edward said, raising his signature eyebrow. "Feeling thirsty?"

He knew I was. It had been a few days since our last hunt, and I was primed for a nice walk in the woods with him, as I called our little adventures. I was still a newborn vampire and enjoyed the thrill of the kill.

Alice had clearly planned for this "Party's at seven," she yelled from the closet. "Don't be late." We barely heard her and Nessie giggle as we ran into the morning mist, holding hands at a full sprint.


	4. Chapter 4

It still amazed me how seamlessly Edward and I ran together. We travelled as one entity, ten times faster than he had ever run when I was a human riding on his back.

We arrived at the Canadian border within an hour or so. I always preferred to hunt in Canada, and he never objected. He caught the first scent, as always. It was a pack of bobcats, at least three or four big ones. Cats were always my favorite, and my ivory teeth gleamed with the prospect.

Edward was still teaching me to exercise restraint with prey. Overpowering the obvious target was easy, but getting the filling kill took patience. We slowed to a jog as we approached the pack and moved gracefully together through the brush. It was snowing here and had been raining in Forks, but our stone skin wasn't affected by the difference.

There were seven bobcats relaxing in the forest. I always preferred an ambush, knowing my prey had never seen it coming – more humane this way.

My eyes instantly found the Alpha, a regal white bobcat that rose above the rest in stature. The cat was older and physically weaker than some members of its pack, but it was the unquestioned leader.

"See the fat one next to the Alpha, the grey one," Edward whispered to me. "That's your best target. Approach slowly…" I interrupted him, snarling "Got it." I was ready to taste the cat's blood.

I moved quickly but quietly to the pack's flank as Edward stood back and watched from a safe but accessible position. Once I was close enough, all of my muscles ripped toward the unsuspecting fat cat's neck, killing it instantly as my arms broke its neck. I laid enjoying its blood as the others scattered. I caught Edward out of the corner of my eye with the Alpha. He always gave me the prime cut.

In those savage moments that I devoured my prey, I felt wholly animal, like I imagined Jacob sometimes felt in his wolf form. Would I gain restraint or control with practice? Part of me hoped I never did.

The hunt continued for a few hours, until it was time to return to Forks for our daughter's birthday party. We had enjoyed plenty of prey, but I could have had more. As a newborn, my thirst was never satiable, only subdued until the next hunt. Edward had decades of practice.

"Want to ride on my back again, love," Edward asked, baring his teeth as he laughed. "Nessie will be waiting."

"Nah, race ya home!" I said, before taking off to the south.


	5. Chapter 5

You could have seen the lights from Seattle. Alice had prepared thousands of pink and white lights all along the driveway leading to our home. Although Edward, Nessie and I spent most of our time as a family in the smaller cottage, I still considered the main residence my home now. After all, it was where my new life had begun.

I arrived twelve-hundredths of a second sooner than Edward did. I was still faster than he was, but I was slowing. We came to a walk together and held hands as we moved up the driveway towards the bright house. I wondered if anyone asked themselves why the Cullens threw so many parties these days.

Jacob was leaning against a tree near the house. "Hey Bells, Edward," he said, joining us as we approached the front door. "Hi Jacob, glad you could make it," I said. Edward nodded and smiled at him. The two of them got along as well as a vampire and werewolf could, probably because Jacob would one day be Edward's son-in-law.

Rosalie was at the door with Nessie before we reached the steps to the porch.

"Mutt," she whispered under her breath. Jacob responded by cracking a slightly demonic smile towards Rosalie before jogging a few strides ahead of us to hug Nessie.

"Hey, kid, Happy… birthday!" he laughed as he said it.

"Aw, thanks Jake," she said, putting her arms around his neck before offering her hand toward him.

Jacob always liked to see Nessie's world through her own eyes and gently took her hand into his. She replayed for him the day's activities, no doubt outlining the difficult minutes it took to pick out the right dress and the intense planning session with Alice over the color of the lights in the driveway.

"You've been busy, kiddo!" he said, her hand still in his. Then he broke out into a belly laugh that made everyone look at him. Nessie put her free hand up to her mouth as she giggled.

"The dream," Edward deadpanned.

"Definitely," I giggled along with my daughter.

The four of us stepped as a group into the huge first floor. Everyone was here, Carlisle and Esme in the living room on the couch and Jasper and Emmett arguing about something in the kitchen. Rosalie closed the door behind us as I noticed the massive pile of presents in the center of the room.

I looked at Alice but she shot back a glare that I saw at the last birthday party. "She'll outgrow them soon enough. She's wearing something new every day!" she said at Nessie's last birthday party.

Edward and I walked to his parents while Rosalie and Jacob went off to compete for Nessie's attention.

"How was the hunt, Bella?" Carlisle asked as we embraced. Everyone in the house could smell the scent of the bobcats on us.

"Sufficient. There's always tomorrow." Edward raised another promising eyebrow in my direction. Canada's wildlife stood no chance against a newborn vampire and her perfect husband.

"Still the northern bobcats, eh?" Carlisle asked. He was fascinated by my specific choice of prey, and my insistence on running to Canada for the hunt. But then again, not much about me surprised him anymore. I'd re-written more than a few books in his mind, he often told me. I reminded myself to soon tell him about the pain I felt during my transformation. I never knew when he'd need that information.

I playfully licked my lips and moved closer to Edward, putting my arm around his waist as my head rested near his chest.

"She is still somewhat faster than me, but that should change soon," he teased. "If not, she might have to give me a head start."

Esme laughed. "You never know with this one," she pointed her graceful finger at me. "She may someday even surprise you, Edward.

"You have no idea," he said, looking lovingly at me.

Esme glanced over at Rosalie and Jacob playing on the floor, and we all followed her gaze. Rosalie and Nessie were throwing a baseball back and forth as Jacob laid on his back and pretended to try to steal it. Every few throws, he'd bat it out of the air towards Nessie and wrestle her for it before giving in. She laughed and raised her hands in triumph every time she won the mock struggle.

"It really is great you let Alice put these on, they will be great memories for Nessie," she said to Edward and I, trailing off.

Seven-hundredths of a second later, my world changed again. Rosalie had thrown the baseball to Nessie and she missed it, tripping in the process. She fell backwards and Jacob wasn't fast enough to get under her head before it hit the side of a glass table. Blood sprayed as her head hit the floor a split-second later.

Jasper sprung from his conversation with Emmett and Jacob was between him and Nessie instantly. "Easy bloodsucker, remember what happened last time…"

Jasper was faster than Jacob. In a split second, Jasper was around him, hovering over my daughter. I leaped across the room and tackled Jasper, his body crashing down with a force that almost tore the wall away from the floor. As I pinned him to the floor, ready to tear him apart in blind anger, the smell of Renesmee's blood filled my newborn lungs. Something inside me snapped.

"DON'T… YOU… EVER…." I couldn't control myself. I was pinning Jasper down, spitting at him as I screamed, my mouth inches from his face "TOUCH…" I felt my whole body burning with rage.

I jumped off of a stunned Jasper into a defensive pose and saw that Carlisle already had Nessie in his arms, moving upstairs to tend to her wound. Any maternal instinct that could see through the fire in my eyes told me my daughter was be safe. I was the one who was not. I would never be the same again.

"Bella, you need…" was all I heard Edward say, as I sprinted out the back door and ran to Canada in a bloodlust.


	6. Chapter 6

**Edward (POV)**

What was _she thinking?!_ More important, what was my daughter thinking? And why hadn't Alice seen this coming? A million questions barraged my thoughts in a split second until I realized it. Bella's eyes were ruby red. None of us could catch her now.

I stared at Alice, horrified, paralyzed for the first time in my decades of existence. I was being pulled in so many directions. My blood hungry wife. My bleeding daughter. My family's safety. The world was exploding all around me and I was powerless to stop it.

Suddenly Esme was next to me with a firm hand on my shoulder. "Bella will be OK. Go upstairs to your father and your daughter."

I walked upstairs more out of obedience to my mother than sheer will. I felt as though the life had been sucked out of me. And then I smelled my daughter's blood. It was a hundred times more potent than Bella's had been, or had I forgotten so quickly? My protective instincts for Renesmee brought me back to reality. I took a defensive stance outside the room as Carlisle tended to her wounds, my throat burning from the smell of her blood.

_"Don't worry, they already ran outside. Carlisle made sure of it. They're already tracking Bella,"_ Alice thought as she walked up the steps toward the doorway. _"You need to try to calm down, Edward. It's going to be alright."_

"You don't know that," I snapped back. "You can't know that." I turned into the room. Carlisle had already stopped most of the bleeding. He had sedated Renesmee, which I was grateful for. I didn't want her to see her father in this condition.

Alice stopped short of the doorway and covered her mouth and nose. How in the world did Carlisle manage being so close? Love was the only thing stopping three vampires from devouring an innocent child.

"I've stopped the bleeding," he said, still bending over her body. "It was a minor injury, but the cut produced an abnormal amount of blood. There's still so much I don't know about her biology," Carlisle said, as if he were teaching an anatomy lab at a university.

"What's going to happen to her?" I asked nobody in particular. They both knew I meant Bella.

"Jasper and Emmett will track her. They will catch up and protect her from herself, as best they can," Carlisle said, still dabbing cloth on my daughter's head.

"You don't think she'd….."

"No, Edward, the track is no doubt north," Alice said. "She is going to Canada."

Just then, Renesmee stirred from the mild sedative that Carlisle had given her. Her eyes opened with horror, and immediately reached to touch my face. Words could not answer the questions in her mind. I wasn't sure anything could.


	7. Chapter 7

I took a second to compose my mind before I leaned toward my daughter. The moment she _showed_ me what she saw, I realized how profoundly she understood what had happened to her mother. As she fell, she saw herself through her mother's eyes, the blood burning in Bella's throat, the undeniable instinct to hunt. But another image flashed into her mind: the horrified face of Jacob Black. This face was the source of the horror now in my daughter's eyes.

Where is Jacob? In the minute or so that had passed since Nessie fell I hadn't given it any thought. I allowed myself to admit that his world and mine would be forever linked. I almost missed his strength by my side.

"He's out there trying to find Bella. He knew he couldn't do anything here," Alice said, reading my reaction to Nessie. "But we know he's not fast enough."

Horror turned to confusion on my daughter's face as she processed Alice's words. Nessie pulled her hand back from my face and stared beyond us, weighing her next words carefully.

"Why did he leave?" she whispered.

"He will never leave you, little one," Carlisle said, wiping sweat from her forehand with a soft handkerchief. "But he needs to be useful. The sooner we catch up to your mother, the sooner we can try to help her."

I couldn't imagine why Nessie was putting Jacob before her own mother. Did she perceive something about the future that we had not realized?

"But Momma's going to be OK, right? It happens to everyone… every vampire… sooner or later, that's what you told me. What if Jake gets hurt…what if Momma hurts him?"

"Nobody's getting hurt," I said as confidently as I could manage. I had no idea if my words were true. I hadn't even considered the possibility of Bella attacking Jacob. In her state, he would be no match, but werewolves are never alone. We had to find Bella fast, warn the others. Protect her.

"Edward, you and Alice go join the others. Esme, Rosalie will stay here with me and Renesmee. You must keep Bella away from the cities. Guide her into the wilderness if you can. Alice, make sure nobody has taken note of this disruption," Carlisle instructed.

I leaned over and kissed Nessie on the forehead, glancing at Carlisle with a concerned look. I could still smell Nessie's blood, but it only intensified my desire to locate Bella and begin to put our shattered world back together.

1


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